The small knot of men were seated around a long work table inside an old mill off Water Street in Fall River. They could have been mistaken as having just returned from lunch around the corner at Earnshaw's Diner — except for a couple of things.

The pre-World War II food spot's been gone for a decade, and these men were all sharing tales of those who helped build the maze of "spaghetti ramps" above the spot. They are all in their 70s and retired.

In the mid-1960s, they were working men on a project of promise for Greater Fall River.

On this particular day, around noon, they volunteered to mark a milestone, answering a call from The Herald News.

They came by to remember and share their work stories in the then-Massachusetts Highway Department and the contractor, F. W. White, on the Route 79/Route 138/Davol Street ramps. The ramps are about a mile and a half of two- and three-story decks, about 50 feet high, running traffic on highways through the heart of the city and onto the new bridge from various angles.

'They're knocking 'em down'

"And now they're knocking 'em down. They've got a lot of nerve," was what Frank Swass said when first asked to join the group of old-timers.

They ranged in age from 71 to 77, with Swass tied for oldest. Each of the four men were sharp and alert, walking without a hitch across Davol Street and under the ramps to the parking lot of Work Out World. The nearby machines were clawing, drilling and slicing the structures down like metal monsters.

Swass was assistant to the resident engineer for this project during a 40-year career with what is now the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

His primary job — working with about a dozen state highway staff on the ramps — was assisting with inspections to ensure bridge and road structures and drainage were done to state specifications.

Though Swass now lives in Westport, he was raised in Fall River and still keeps close ties there. He said work crews always wondered what caused those in charge to build the ramps through the heart of the city. Word was politics shifted the location from the area further north.

"Somebody had the idea this was going to revitalize the city," Swass said. He was keenly aware that revitalization is precisely why the deteriorating ramps are now being torn down. The new plan is to merge street-level connections between an open downtown and the waterfront.

He also remarked on the nearby project of enclosing the Quequechan River inside 96-inch-wide holding tanks. "Now they want to take it out of the pipe," he said of the river.

Granite blasting and a close call

Page 2 of 5 - When he remembered "the hardness of the Fall River granite," John Rogers of Somerset, a carpenter, said "we spent a lot of time ducking the granite" while building pieces for the cement decks.

The granite blasting was extensive: 20 feet down in places, they said. Though they used blankets to protect the glass of nearby homes.

"We used to have crews just going around fixing windows," Swass said.

He also remembered "hundreds and hundreds" of mechanically drilled test holes.

"It looked a little bit like Texas but without the oil," he laughed.

Rogers, 77, who was also raised in Fall River, worked for White for about a year on this job and also worked in Providence and Boston just before the Big Dig started. He recalled a close call while high up on the ramps.

As he looked out with the group toward Davol Street near Anawan and Pocasset, he said it was the area where, nearly 50 years ago, a co-worker screamed at him to freeze.

"There were high-tension wires right next to me," said Rogers, who said he was nearly electrocuted. "We didn't have protection then."

Jack Mello, 73, of Westport, was a cement-finishing foreman on the bridge decks for White from 1964 to 1966. He said it took two and a half years to build the spaghetti ramps.

Swass and Howard Goldberg — the project manager for Barletta Heavy Division, the joint-venture contractor on the current $200 million Route 79 project — both touted the cement work of Mello's family.

"They were experts as far as finishing was concerned," Swass said. "These guys were like watching a fine artist."

Mello recalled the work was being completed on the Braga Bridge when the ramp construction began.

Several years later, when the next phase of Route 79/Davol Street ramps were being built north of the turnaround near the former Regatta bar and grill, that job got held up.

A tragedy in Worcester

On the afternoon of April 16, 1968, steel girders that were each 135 feet long and weighed more than 15 tons collapsed onto Southbridge Street in Worcester from what is now Interstate 290, according to a Worcester Telegram & Gazette story written six years ago that took a look back at construction.

Three people were killed, including the president of the construction company.

That bridge superstructure was similar in design to one in Fall River, Mello said. For a week or two after the incident, the next phase of Fall River's elevated bridge ramps project was shut down.

"That shook a lot of people up," Mello said.

The force of those girders falling from the bridge in Worcester caused a fuel truck to explode when hit. The driver escaped. But Frederick Barletta, who owned the project contracting company, died trying to rescue trapped motorists, according to the news account.

Page 3 of 5 - He was the grandfather of Vincent Barletta, the head of Barletta Heavy Division that's currently working on the Route 79 project.

'Breaks my heart'

Rogers showed the most discomfort over the viaducts being torn down. He asked why the concrete and steel wasn't maintained better to preserve the bridges and ramps.

Mello responded by talking about the cycle on the bridges that freeze and thaw, the ice and the salt mixing, the expansion joints enlarging, the holes and the cracking through the weight and the pounding of trucks and cars over the years.

Still, Rogers, who later went to college and gained his teaching credentials, said of the tumbling spaghetti ramps: "That breaks my heart when I see that."

"You think how much work was done here, unbelievable," Rogers said. "I just hope it works."

Work on the ramps

MassHighway junior engineer Jake Roberts, who entered the MassDOT mill office a bit late, said he was a "low-grade engineering aide" when he began his 38-year career for the state in 1963. That year, work on the Braga Bridge began. On the spaghetti ramps, four workers performed the survey work, two engineers and the two aides doing grunt work.

He recalled using "piano wire" 200 and 300 feet long to make the precise marks for the pier columns because "you couldn't pull a tape" that far and straight.

He was making $1.47 an hour or about $63 a week. One week, late in the project, "we worked a lot of overtime in order to finish" the work.

"I cleared $100 that week," he said. "I went down to Mel's Jewelers and bought a diamond pinky ring. I thought I was rich."

Several of Mello's old buddies joked about him earning a top wage in his trade, and he jabbed Roberts while the group stood and posed for a photo in the back of the mill parking, near the ramps parallel to Davol Street.

"We were too busy finishing concrete," Mello said at the idea of splurging for a fancy ring.

The site also made them remember the chourico sandwiches women in the sewing shops, a few feet from the ramps, would give to them.

They also had less appealing memories, such as the thousands of rodents being flushed from underground and the demolition site during the construction.

Hartnett, the resident engineer

Among several names mentioned by the retired MassHighway crew members, Swass and Roberts, was the late Richard Hartnett of Fall River.

Swass had finished working as assistant engineer on a section of Interstate 195 from Plymouth Avenue to the Braga Bridge when he was assigned to the spaghetti ramps under Hartnett, he said.

"The resident engineer was the top dog," Swass said of Hartnett. "He was just an excellent guy."

Page 4 of 5 - Roberts, who didn't have the higher standing of Swass, had a slightly different memory of Richard Hartnett, who was the father of James Hartnett, Fall River's planning director for many years.

"He would initial our time sheets. When he told you go out and do Pier 4 and 5 and he went to inspect, you better be there," recalled Roberts. When the job started at 7 a.m., it was a good idea to be there at 6:55 or earlier.

"Dick was a great guy," Roberts said.

He recalled the MassHighway staff under Hartnett. They included Bill Geary, Chris Geary, Raymond Dione, John Hasson, Charlie Begin and Jim Craig.

Richard Hartnett's son James, who this year became planning director in his hometown of Westport, comes from a family of engineers, including his younger brothers Brad and Mike, both of whom work for MassDOT in Taunton and Worcester, respectively.

James Hartnett was in his early 20s when his father died in 1986, but Hartnett has a memory about the spaghetti ramps as a young child. He thinks it might have been the second northern phase near the turnaround.

A memory from Jim Hartnett

"I remember he took me down to the job site," Hartnett said of project. He said it was on Davol Street near the gas station.

His memory was general but positive.

"You're a kid. You're just amazed at the amount of work," he said. "It was fun."

"He was down there quite a bit," he said of his father.

Hartnett, who spent time as a child around his father and uncle Bobby Hartnett's surveying company on Saturdays, remembered one piece of conversation years later about the mill buildings near Anawan Street being barely a couple feet from the ramps and the challenge of building them so close. But they did.

"I think it's a great project for the city," said James Hartnett, who grew up here in the years just after the ramps were built.

"You see what it's done for New Bedford? It could be even more dramatic for Fall River with the size and scope," he said.

Swass, the former assistant to Richard Hartnett, concurred with the latter's son.

"I come from Fall River. I love this town. Anybody that lives here can't help but hope this project succeeds," Swass said.

As he and the other trio of men watched the heavy machinery tear down the concrete and steel and open the sky view toward the waterfront, Swass said, "I look at this, and I do miss this, working with all those talented people."

He and Mello talked about the good breakfasts at Earnshaw's Diner.

"We spent a lot of time at Earnshaw's," said Swass, who then quickly corrected himself. "Not a lot of time. A little time. They were good memories."

Page 5 of 5 - This article was updated on Jan. 15 to reflect new information.